U of Texas, A&M Shortchanging Students On American History, Report Says

American history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University focus too much on race, class and gender and not enough on military, diplomatic, religious and intellectual matters, according to a new report.

The report by the National Association of Scholars and its affiliate, the Texas Association of Scholars, examined the textbooks and other readings for 85 sections of lower-division American history courses at the two schools in fall 2010. All too often, the report concluded, the readings gave students “a less-than-comprehensive picture of U.S. history,” with the situation “far more problematic” at UT than at A&M.

At UT, 78 percent of the faculty members who taught the freshman and sophomore classes were deemed “high assigners” of race, class and gender readings, meaning that more than half of the content had such a focus. At A&M, 50 percent of faculty members were deemed high assigners of such material.

The National Association of Scholars is a New York-based nonprofit. Its website lists dozens of concerns regarding higher education, such as “exclusion of conservative and traditional viewpoints,” “administrative bloat” and “partying and the hook-up culture.”